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In case you've
never used the Internet, ROTFLOL is an acronym
for Rolling On the Floor Laughing Out Loud. It's also the solo music
of Jacob Ciocci, founding member of the internationally renowned
art collective, Paper Rad (which you've also probably
heard of if you have indeed checked out this internet thing), video
professor, and multimedia artist. Ciocci has been a creative powerhouse
for years, he animates, makes videos, comics, internet art and paintings
for DIY circles as well as for eminent institutions like Deitch
Projects, Foxy Productions, The MOMA in NYC, and the Migros Museum
in Switzerland. Over the last decade, he's haunted the basements,
house parties, and micro-raves of America and Europe, doing solo
performances as well as playing with his band, Extreme Animals.
His artwork and videos are known for their brightness, manic energy,
and jarring "pop" imagery, but they're never without humor,
or philosophical intent.
Ciocci's music and art, along with Paper Rad's monumental
output, have been (to say the least) highly influential on a younger
generation of artists and musicians. ROTFLOL is
a "best of" collection of Jacob's solo music from the
past decade, soundtracks from videos and animations, as well as
a selected discography of self released cassettes, hand made CDRs,
7 inch vinyl, and live recordings. The music is often composed in
ACII, blasted through a series of vintage Casio keyboards and budget
electronics, recorded in real time and captured onto rainbow-colored
floppy discs before being mixed down to digibeta, for that perfect
sound. This collection is an attempt to collect this musical output
as its own musical statement on vinyl LP, along with a full DVD
of selected video works (some classics, such as the Peace
Tape, and some yet unseen face melters) as well as a digital
download including over an hours worth of "bonus tracks".
PRESS:
"The Peace Tape is a multitude of fantasies stuffed into a
membrane of montage that seems to represent fantasy itself—as
such, it seems apt that the video’s last, lingering image
is a dog in a dog costume." - Brian Droitcour (Art Forum)
"Watching The Peace Tape video was akin to witnessing
one's adult self barbarically intervening on childhood memories...
Radically, Ciocci exhumes psychedelia's narrative of ecstatic discovery
carefully buried within the optical power of the medium itself.
The staccato pulsations and dizzying colors are fun and trippy,
to be sure, but Ciocci's work resonates because it lacks pretense
and isn't far removed from our own misinterpretations of media."
- Dena Beard (Shotgun Review)
"A flashing, buzzing graveyard of primitive,
low-resolution animated animals... is instantaneously dazzling and
nauseating. (By the way, the museum installation of this work, which
includes real stuffed animals thrashing wildly and turning on spits
once you approach, is fabulous, the hit of the show.) And no one
will blame you for turning away from it after a few seconds."
- NY Times |